


baby, rewind one more time

by ascience



Category: Football RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Borussia Dortmund, Germany U21, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 18:01:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6434686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ascience/pseuds/ascience
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The neon sign of <em>Hollywood Videos</em> flickers sadly above the entrance of the 24/7 video store, but the light coming from inside is very welcoming. At least it seems that way to Mo, because it’s better than endless chapters of pretentious professor talk – and if Mo’s in luck, his favourite clerk is working.</p>
            </blockquote>





	baby, rewind one more time

**Author's Note:**

> AU in which video rental shops are still a thing. Second fic that features porn movies, somehow? As always fighting writer's block.

Exam periods are not his proudest time, Mo realises once again when he’s standing in the queue of a supermarket, trying to balance too many packages of skittles and ramen in his arms, too late to call it evening, too early to call it night.

He’s even got the shrimp flavoured ramen that he hates, but Auba loves – so that shows how his mind is on everything _except_ studying.

Mo pays with a crinkled five euro note and an awkward amount of cent coins, but the cashier just counts them into his register with about as much impressionability as a sloth on sleeping pills.

When Mo makes his way back to his flat, he can’t help but walk slower and slower as to preferably never have to look at this uni books again. He can’t put it off forever, but he can put it off for a pretty long time. After all, he still has a week until the exam, so he should be totally fine. Auba hasn’t even started yet.

Mo drags his sneaker-clad feet over the wet sidewalks and occasionally pops a skittle into his mouth. He isn’t on his direct route home, because there’s another stop he wants to tick off.

The neon sign of _Hollywood Videos_ flickers sadly above the entrance of the 24/7 video store, but the light coming from inside is very welcoming. At least it seems that way to Mo, because it’s better than endless chapters of pretentious professor talk – and if Mo’s in luck, his favourite clerk is working.

Mo peeks through a window before he enters the store, and sure enough, it’s Leonardo standing behind the counter and tapping away on his phone.

He’s wearing a turned snapback and a plain white shirt, and it _should_ look douchey, but it doesn’t. Or well, it does, but that doesn’t mean it looks bad, at all.

It’s not like Mo _knows_ -knows Leonardo, but Mo can read a name tag if it’s pinned to an impressive chest, and Leonardo is always doing the late shifts during which he comes in.

When Mo opens the door, the bell softly dings and Leonardo lifts his gaze from his phone. He smiles and nods at Mo in a way that might imply that he actually recognises him, so Mo shrugs in a _what-can-you-do_ motion.

The packages of ramen in his backpack rustle as Mo walks through the aisles towards the Sci-Fi section, and the sound seems extremly loud in the almost empty store. When Mo turns around, he catches Leonardo looking at him, but neither the woman in the horror section nor the one looking at romance movies seem to be bothered.

Mo rubs a hand across his eyes, yawns and then grabs _Pacific Rim_ from the shelf. He’s watched it too many times to count, but it’s also sure to be a great time, no matter how far his studies get him down.

On the way to the counter, Mo stares at the ugly 90s carpet as to avoid awkwardly looking into Leonardo’s eyes for the whole distance.

When did he forget how to flirt?

Mo puts _Pacific Rim_ on the desk and then slips his backpack around to get his old rented DVDs out of the bag. He has to rearrange his ramen inventory for it, which probably does not make him seem like a well-adjusted, attractive adult, but he’s standing in a video store at 10pm so to hell with it.

Leonardo doesn’t take note of Mo’s DVDS as he swipes them across the scanner. He just pushes them over the desk and then clicks around on the computer screen in front of him with a never-changing bored expression. He mumbles ‘thanks’ like he probably would with every customer, but then Mo can suddenly see how something on the screen catches Leonardo’s attention.

Leonardo’s mouth quirks into an amused smile when he glances at Mo and then back at the screen. It’s a good look on him, but it also makes Mo squirm, wondering what might be the issue.

He did pay his membership fee, right? No, yes, he had poured his change into Leonardo’s open hands and their fingers touched, and Leonardo probably doesn’t remember it, but Mo distinctly does.

“Is that all the movies you brought?” Leonardo asks, and Mo pats his bag, before he nods.

“Uh, yeah. Why, did I forget anything?”

“No, no. It’s fine, just checking.” Leonardo is still smirking as he slides over the new movie Mo rented. “Okay… then _Fuck Hard Farm Boys_ is due on Friday.”

Mo looks up from his wallet, stops in his motion to squish old receipts into the pockets.

“Sorry, what?”

“ _Fuck Hard Farm Boys._ You rented it four weeks ago so it’s due this Friday.”

“I’m sorry I... think there’s some confusion. I didn’t rent any other movies. And certainly none called _Fuck Hard_ , uh...”

“ _Fuck Hard Farm Boys_.”

Leonardo says the words without the faintest hint of blushing or reserve. Mo however is flustered and looks around, meeting the eyes of the elderly woman that has queued behind him. Her face is unmoved, but the reproach in her eyes would do a Catholic priest credit.

Well, maybe she shouldn’t be in video stores in the middle of the night and pray to the Lord above instead if she’s got a problem with it, Mo thinks.

“I didn’t rent – that movie.”

“So I’m assuming you didn’t rent _Porn Trek_ and the fifteen other movies that are due this week either?”

“What, no! You’ve seen the movies I get and it’s not those!” Mo gestures his hands towards the door in the back that says _18+ ONLY_. The last thing he wants right now is for Leonardo to think he’s some perv who gets porn movies from the store, as if he doesn’t know it’s 2016 and the Internet exists for that stuff.

Leonardo shrugs, leaning down against the counter. “They were rented under your account number.”

“That must be a mistake. I swear –“

“How about you check back home whether you find those movies anywhere and,” Leonardo pats Mo’s hand and _winks_ at him. “if you really don’t know where they are, come back and we figure it out.”

It leaves Mo so embarrassed that he doesn’t even try to come up with a good come-back. Instead he just grabs his _Pacific Rim_ copy and wonders how long it would take a person to dig their own grave with nothing but a DVD case. _R.I.P. Mo Leitner. Embarrassed himself in front of his crush and died._

The woman next in line slams her Nicholas Sparks movie on the counter as if part of an exorcism, so she doesn’t see Mo stick out his tongue at her behind her back.

Arriving back at their flat, Mo comes home to Auba lying on the floor of his room in the middle of a load of open books.

Annoyingly, it even seems as if Auba is much further in his efforts to study than Mo although he could only have started after Mo left the house.

Mo throws his bag on Auba’s bed where it lands on the face of a stuffed Batman toy.

“You sometimes use my _Hollywood Videos_ membership card, right?”

“Sure,” Auba responds.

“Did you, by any chance, rent a couple – let’s say seventeen – porn movies on my name four weeks ago and forget to return them?”

“Why would I rent porn movies, dude? Maybe _you_ rented them and forgot.”

Mo is far from convinced yet. “Are you sure _Fuck Hard Farm Boys_ doesn’t ring a bell? _Porn Trek_? _XXX Superheroes_? Want me to continue?”

“Ohhhhhh, “Auba says and halts in his mission to highlight entire chapters in his book, sudden recognition on his face. “Oh. Yeah. I remember. That was a prank.”

“A what now?”

“Uh. Pranked?” Auba tries and waves his hands like saying _ta-dah_.

“You forgot about your own prank? That you did four fucking weeks ago?”

Auba shrugs. “I guess I figured someone at the store would ask you about them earlier. Isn’t there that one dude you’re into?”

“That’s... not the issue right now! Do you still have the DVDs?”

Auba has to think about it for a worryingly long time, before he replies: “In the back of my socks drawer?”

Mo sighs and checks, but to his surprise the DVDs are actually there, all seventeen of them.

“Come on,” Auba says strangely benevolently, holding out his hand, “I’m gonna bring them back tomorrow.”

There’s a twinkle in Auba’s eye that Mo can’t quiet place but that is usually reserved for untrustworthy shenanigans.

Mo still gives him the DVDs, but when he asks about them after a day, he’s somewhat proven right.

“Did you resolve the whole thing?”

“What thing?” Auba asks and absentmindedly touches the bruise on his neck that Mo knows wasn’t there yesterday.

“The DVDs?”

“Oh, yeah. Yep. Brought them back. Definitely brought them back.” Auba grins like there’s something he’s not telling and Mo’s pretty sure it has to do with the video store and not the diagrams in the book in front of him.

Which of course means that Mo himself has to go to the store again to check that everything with his account is in order and nobody rented any movies that contain varieties of three x’s in his name.

If he waits until evening so he matches Leonardo’s shift, that’s just because he totally uses the time beforehand to study. (God, he’s going to fail this exam so hard. Oh well.)

Leonardo is still working the whole snapback T-shirt combo, and this time when Mo enters the store, he actually does a double-take and breaks out in a grin.

“Hang on. I know you.”

“Yeah, obviously, “ Mo replies and coughs awkwardly. “I figured you’d remember the guy who rented twenty porn movies.”

“No, no,” Leonardo squints and waves him off. “I mean sure, that’s... memorable. But there was something before that. You’re the dude who rented Star Wars Episode II, IV and VII and came back all disappointed because the story didn’t make sense. That was you, right? I meant to ask last time but I forgot.”

“It’s not my fault they can’t write normal numbers and use this weird stick language instead.”

“ _Stick language_. Roman numerals?”

“Fuck off.”

Leonardo laughs, and it’s a beautiful laugh (even though Mo is on the receiving end of it) with him closing his eyes and showing his teeth.

“I’m Mo, by the way. Moritz really, but Mo’s just fine,” Mo offers.

“I know. I can see all your info on here, you know,” Leonardo replies and gestures at the screen in front of him. “I feel like I know you pretty well just through your movie history. _High School Musical_ and _Silence of the Lambs_ on the same day? Damn.”

Leonardo needlessly adjusts his name tag, before he leans over the counter, propped up on one elbow. He’s looking at Mo from below now, and all Mo can do is bashfully scratch at a chipped away corner of the desk to give his fingers something to do.

“I’m Leo,” Leonardo says, then after a second, “... which you probably know as well, because my name tag says so. Favourite movie is _Fight Club_. Now we’re on the same page.”

“Not about the porn movies,” Mo points out. He hates that he can feel himself blushing.

“Oh? Care to elaborate?”

“Well, those seventeen movies I rented, uhm, _Fuck Hard Farm Boys_?”

“I recall.”

“My friend rented them as a prank and forgot about them. I’m not... actually into that stuff, if you think that.”

“You’re not into sweet gay kisses?” Leonardo innocently licks his lips. Unfair.

“I didn’t –,” Mo stops himself and coughs, “Not the point. Anyway, my friend brought back the movies the other day. It wasn’t your shift, I think, it was almost midnight.”

“In that case, I’ve actually seen your friend a couple of times, I think,” Leo says, “The guy with the great hair and the Batman merch?”

“Auba, yeah.”

Leo nods.

“Do you perhaps know Marco?”

“I don’t think so?”

“He’s my colleague. Usually works like midnight onwards.”

Mo remembers now – the guy looked like pale asparagus.

“Oh, the guy with the weird hair and the Batman merch?”

“That’s him, yeah,” Leo laughs, and his eyebrows do a wiggly movement that implies he’s letting Mo in on a joke. It only takes a second to connect the dots and, well, the bruises.

“You mean, Auba and – Marco?”

“I’m afraid to enter the storage room without knocking now, is all I’m saying.”

Mo and Leo simultaneously pull a face when thinking about their respective friend like that.

They’re interrupted by the sound of the bell dinging, and they both shuffle to see a guy walk through the door.

“Uh, alright, anyways,” Mo says as nonchalantly as he can, clears his throat. He taps his fingers on the counter. “Glad to have it all sorted out.”

Leo’s smile seems to falter for a second, but then he does a mock salute. Mo actually turns around, but he’s never been one to follow through with his plans (his books can confirm), so he turns around _again_.

“Listen, uh, we’re going to have a movies night after our exam next week and we’re inviting some friends. And after your revelation, I figure, Auba might bring – Marco was the name, right? So, uh, like,” Mo stutters, “Wanna come?”

Leonardo beams – at least before he decides that it’s not cool and tones it down to a favourable nod. Mo favourably nods back, while inwardly doing somersaults.

“You got enough good movies? Or do you want to rent any?”

Mo scratches his chin. “We’ve been thinking about investing in a Netflix account actually.”

Leo whacks Mo over the head with a DVD case. Must be a Nicholas Sparks movie.

**Author's Note:**

> Short, but hopefully sweet!  
> I'd be happy to see you around on [twitter](https://twitter.com/kissthecrest) or [tumblr](http://lahmly.tumblr.com/).


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